Open Culture’s recent post “Stephen King’s 20 Rules for Writers” recounts the renowned author’s discussion of the importance of a good opening line–that single (though not necessarily simple) first sentence that serves as an invitation to the reader and a doorway into the narrative for the writer. King’s comments sent me scurrying over to my bookshelves to reflect on the author’s best practice of such preaching. Here’s a list of what I found to be the top twenty opening lines in King’s novels/novellas:
Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.–The Shining (1977)
This is what happened.–The Mist (1980)
Once upon a time, not long ago, a monster came to the town of Castle Rock, Maine.–Cujo (1981)
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.–The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982)
The most important things are the hardest things to say.–The Body (1982)
“Thinner,” the old Gypsy man with the rotting nose whispers to William Halleck as Halleck and his wife Heidi come out of the courthouse.–Thinner (1984)
The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years–if it ever did end–began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.–IT (1986)
People’s lives–their real lives, as opposed to their simple physical existences–begin at different times.–The Dark Half (1989)
“You stole my story,” the man on the doorstep said.–Secret Window, Secret Garden (1990)
No one–least of all Dr. Lichfield–came right out and told Ralph Roberts that his wife was going to die, but there came a time when Ralph understood without needing to be told.–Insomnia (1994)
She sits in a corner, trying to draw air out of a room which seemed to have plenty just a few minutes ago and now seems to have none.–Rose Madder (1995)
“ASK ME A RIDDLE,” Blaine invited.–The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass (1997)
The world had teeth and it could bite you with them any time it wanted.–The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
When someone dies, you think about the past.–Why We’re in Vietnam (1999)
Pere Don Callahan had once been a Catholic priest of a town, ‘Salem’s Lot had been its name, that no longer existed on any map.–The Dark Tower (2004)
To the public eye, the spouses of well-known writers are all but invisible, and no one knew it better than Lisey Landon.–Lisey’s Story (2006)
When Wesley Smith’s colleagues asked him–some with an eyebrow hoicked satirically–what he was doing with that gadget (they all called it a gadget), he told them he was experimenting with new technology.–UR (2009)
The one thing nobody asked in casual conversation, Darcy thought in the days after she found what she found in the garage, was this: How’s your marriage?—A Good Marriage (2010)
It was an unmarked car, just some nondescript American sedan a few years old, but the blackwall tires and the three men inside gave it away for what it was.–The Outsider (2018)
The day Marty Anderson saw the billboard was just before the Internet finally went down for good.–The Life of Chuck (2020)
Speaking of King novels: his next one, Holly, has been officially announced. And the book description sounds like American Gothic nirvana:
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly [Gibney] must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.
Consider this Constant Reader hooked; I’m already counting the days until the September 2023 publication.